Magdi has been gone 10 months. She was definitely the dominant dog. She made sure Chloe knew it with a couple of painful lessons. Once that was established they got along fine. Sometimes Magdi snapped impatiently, but most of the time they played well together. Though Magdi would have been loathe to admit it, Chloe kept her active longer as the arthritis set into her hips in her last two years. She couldn’t have that little whippersnapper outdoing her.

But we have seen the effects of Magdi’s domination since she died. When people come to visit, Chloe hides. Even from children, Chloe hides. If we happen to be swatting at a fly, she runs for cover. She will sit next to us for only a brief amount of time, then she is off to herself somewhere across the yard because that was always Magdi’s spot. In spite of our diligent efforts to treat them the same, Magdi definitely taught Chloe her place.

We thought about another companion for Chloe, but decided it was not a good idea. She would immediately become submissive again because that is all she knows. She needed time to become “her own dog,” and to know that this was her territory to defend.

Things are coming along, but slowly. She has started digging up moles in the yard. She did this before, but Magdi always took them away from her. When she dug up the first one after Magdi died, she left it for her. Now she knows it’s hers to do with as she pleases. This year the moles have made our yard look like a topographical map, so we are happy to let her do it, even if it means we need to fill in the holes, and we encourage her every time we come across a tunnel.

The neighbor walked his dogs the other day-- two huge Great Danes loping along the fence line like a couple of horses. Chloe wouldn’t go to the fence to challenge them as she used to do with Magdi, but instead of hiding under the porch as she has since Magdi died, she sat out on a raised mound and actually barked at them. Last week some repairmen came. She went out to the road and barked at the truck! The next day when guests came, she hid under the porch again. Oh well, progress is often measured in inches instead of miles.

This morning she walked up to the gate with me. There on the other side was another dog sniffing the ground as dogs do, checking to see who had been around lately and whether this was a place he could claim as his own. I stopped to see what would happen. Instantly Chloe’s ears popped up. She straightened her stance and her tail stood at attention. A low growl began to erupt from deep within her chest, and before I realized what was happening, she spun out, charging the gate with a ferocious bark. That other dog took one look and hightailed it back up the road to his own place, the place Chloe had just put him in with her vigorous defense of her people and her property.

No, it doesn’t mean that things are suddenly right. She still has a long way to go, but she is doing better. We showed her that it was her job, and she has stepped up to the plate, at least once in awhile. There may be things she can never do as well as Magdi did, but there are things she can do even better—like hear the moles in the ground and dig them up.

Haven’t you known a young man who had to follow in the footsteps of a dominant father, one who accomplished much and had many admirers, a young man who thought he could never do the same, and so quit trying? It’s our fault when that happens. We expected him to be his father instead of being who he was. It may very well be that the man he is can do other things equally well, or better, but our expectations have kept him from even discovering those things.

And so in the family of God, as each generation comes along, it is our duty to teach them “the ropes.” Excuse my mixed metaphors, but it is also our duty to step out of the way and pass the torch. No, we don’t put old men out to pasture. If they can still teach or sing or preach or pray, then they need to do that. They have an obligation to God to do that as long as they are able. But we must also allow the next generation time to grow, time to make a few mistakes and learn from them, time to become their own men in the Lord.

“Passing the torch” takes humility. You know you are better so you keep it and run another mile. Meanwhile, that young man, the one with fresher legs, gets no experience, no on-the-job training, and no encouragement. Then, when the old men are gone, he can do nothing. Or perhaps worse, he believes that the things he can do don’t count for anything. Where is the wisdom in that?

Being a young, or inexperienced man takes humility too. Those men before you know what they are talking about when they give you advice. Listen to them. You will not match their prowess at the beginning, but with their help and God’s help and your own hard work, you can be every bit the men of God they are. And by the way, the same goes for the women in the church too.

I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one…I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one, 1 John 2:13-14.

Most of the things we remember from early childhood were traumatic in some way. I could not have been more than 4 or 5 when I was playing with matches in the kitchen floor. Mom was in there and now that I have been a parent, I suspect she knew what I was up to. Naturally, I burned my finger. She turned to my cry and said that hell would be like that but it would not ever stop.

Cruel?

Maybe, but the memory of that has kept me from a lot of sins. You see, I happen to believe that she was right. Oh, I do not expect literal flames any more than I expect literal streets of gold, but Jesus described hell in the worst possible terms imaginable. Consider them a while and it will help you stay on your diet—you won’t want to eat.

Would you warn your child firmly and frighteningly of the dangers of a snake? Or of some other hazard?

Some people treat HELL like it is a joke or only a mild curse word. We do not hear about it much anymore. We have become ashamed of frightening people into obedience. Jesus was not ashamed like that, “It is better to pluck out your eye than to enter hell”. I hold Dene when she jumps up and down from the pain of one of her eye medications and I can only imagine the pain of pulling out an eyeball and that is BETTER than hell?? In other words, “be good or else, big time or else”. We are not showing much love when we fail to warn people. We would jerk an enemy back from a rattlesnake or push a stranger from in front of a train, but we will not warn our friends of eternal hell.

My mom loved me.

And in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ Luke 16:23-24

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Matt 25:41

‘Where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’ For everyone will be salted with fire. Mark 9:48-49

I grew up in Tampa. I learned to drive down Busch Blvd when there were actually empty, weedy lots between Temple Terrace and Florida Avenue. I drove on I-75 with a learner’s permit, what is now I-275, and even into downtown Tampa where my eye doctor had his office in a 20 story “skyscraper”—by Florida standards anyway. I drove down 75 past Howard and Armenia to shop at the only mall in town, Westshore Plaza, in an era when sometimes you wouldn’t see more than 3 other cars on your side of the interstate. Yes, it was a long, long time ago.

I took Driver’s Ed at King High School. They had a little driving course in the back of the school. A two lane “street” painted on a parking lot with stop signs, yield signs, diagonal parking, and pylons for practicing parallel parking. I could drive that course without a hitch and usually even managed to parallel park without crushing a pylon.

But we never practiced U-turns. So one day after I had passed my exam and had my own brand new driver’s license complete with the requisite peon-home-from-working-the-field picture, I was headed west on Busch Blvd and realized I had passed my turn-off. Time for my first U-turn. I pulled into the left lane and patiently waited for the traffic on the other side to clear. It may have been years ago, but traffic was not kind that day. Those cars were spaced just so that I had to wait far longer than if it were a normal left turn. I knew I needed time to straighten out the car and get back up to 45 mph before any oncoming traffic reached me.

Finally there was a break, just barely big enough for me to maneuver, if I hurried. So I spun that wheel hard to the left and pulled out and hit the gas. My little Mustang made it to the far right lane before completely turning, but almost immediately I was in trouble. I had kept the wheel turned too long. The tires screeched as I crossed back over all three lanes and was headed for the median. Even though I needed to let go of the steering wheel I couldn’t. I had thrown myself nearly into the passenger seat and was hanging on for dear life. Thoroughly panicked, I finally let loose enough for the wheel to slide between my hands and allow the car to straighten. I took my foot off the gas and shifted back into the seat just in time to miss the median and straighten myself out in the left lane. No one and nothing was hurt but my pride. I slunk in the seat as the oncoming traffic caught up and passed me, hoping no one I knew had seen that.

That’s what a lack of experience will do for you. I was old enough to drive. But I had never performed that maneuver before, and had probably never paid enough attention to my parents as they did. “It’s just a longer left turn,” I thought. No, it’s a bit more than that.

U-turns in life can be difficult too. I have seen so many young people completely disillusioned because they thought making those U-turns after their baptism would be a cinch. Now that I’ve turned my life over to God I won’t feel those temptations any more, they think. I will suddenly be a changed person, able to live perfectly from here on in. Once again a lack of experience is showing.

We can be forgiven from our sins, but very often the consequences are still there to live with. That can mean things as difficult as serving jail time or fighting addiction or dealing with people we have hurt physically or emotionally. It can also mean the urges of a besetting sin. You will still have to work on it. You may need to change not just your life, but your schedule and your friends in order to see a difference. The same things that tempted you before will continue to tempt you, and the Devil will try even harder because he thinks he might have lost you. Why work on the ones who are securely under his belt?

Tell your children these things. Tell that neighbor you are trying to convert. If they are not prepared for reality, they may lose hope. But also tell them that now they will have help, help that can strengthen them enough to overcome anything—not necessarily easily, but certainly. Help that understands what you are going through and will bear with you as you learn and grow with experience. You may throw yourself across the highway the first time or two, but eventually you will learn to navigate the roads of life, and those U-turns will become easier to make.

And, if you have been “raised in the church,” you may find that the U-turns you need to make are of a completely different sort. It is all too easy when you have never been involved in what we call “the big bad sins” to look down one’s nose on those who came from that background and judge them unworthy because they still struggle. That is the U-turn you must make: away from a judgmental attitude toward compassion, the same compassion Jesus showed for an adulterous woman, a thieving publican, and a convicted criminal. Your U-turn may be the most difficult of all, but he still expects you to make it.

But [I] declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance. Acts 26:20

On February 23, 1942 a Japanese submarine surfaced off the coast of Southern California and fired 13 shells into the Bankline Refinery of Goleta. This alarmed Americans, who had believed that World War II would not be fought on their home ground. Blackouts were required in coastal cities, along with headlight shields on trains running the littoral rails.

It also had a secondary effect. The Forestry Service suddenly realized that, with all the able-bodied men away at war, fighting a forest fire, as was almost caused by the refinery’s proximity to Los Padres National Forest, would be next to impossible. A campaign to stop preventable fires ultimately resulted in Smokey the Bear, a fictional mascot for the Forest Service. The first poster featuring this beloved symbol, drawn with ranger hat, belted blue jeans, and a shovel, reminding us that “Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires,” appeared on August 9, 1944, and he has been with us ever since.

I wonder if we don’t need such a symbol to remind us of the spiritual fires we cause. And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell, James 3:6. I ran out of room writing down the sins caused by the tongue: it breathes lie, it sows discord, it spreads slander, it teaches false doctrine, it tempts men to sin, it kindles strife, it destroys reputations, it splits churches—need I go on?

So how do we prevent those fires? By refusing to listen, by rebuking those who try to set them, by putting them out with a liberal dose of Truth. I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naïve, Rom 16:17,18.

Do you understand exactly how evil some of these sins are? From the time of the Law of Moses, gossip has been associated with bearing false witness, a capital offense, Lev 19:16. The Proverb writer tells us that God hates he who sows discord among brethren, Prov 6:19, something nearly impossible to do with anything other than words. As for liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death, Rev 21:8.

Paul also makes it plain in passages like Romans 1:32 that God considers us as guilty as the ones who do those things when we “consent with those who practice them.” It isn’t enough not to slander, not to lie, not to sow discord or spread false teaching. We are not only not to listen but to actively rebuke as well--have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them, Eph 5:11. God expects us to prevent the fires that would ruin his people’s souls and the unity of his body.

Maybe it’s time we borrowed Smokey the Bear and posted him around our meetinghouses and next to the telephones and computers in our homes. Only we can prevent the fires set by a malicious tongue, whether it is ours or not.

For lack of wood the fire goes out; and where there is no whisperer, contention ceases. As coals are to hot embers, and wood to fire, so is a contentious man to kindle strife, Prov 26:20,21.

The kitchen must be the favorite room in nearly every home. It’s where the family meets to share their meals and their day, to gather important information—“Mom! Where are my good jeans?”—to pick up sustenance when the time between meals is long and the activities vigorous, and a place for sharing thoughts, dreams, and childhood troubles over chocolate chip cookies and ice cold milk. When the kitchen is full of people and laughter, all is right with the world.

That makes the kitchen floor a microcosm of how we all live. All you have to do is drop something small, something that requires your face to be an inch above the floor trying to spy the odd shape or color, and suddenly you know everything anyone has eaten, spilled, or tracked in, even if you clean your floor regularly. If I had every dustpan full of sweepings over my 38 years of marriage, it would make a ten foot pile high of sugar granules, flour, cornmeal, panko, cookie crumbs, Cheerios, oats, blueberries, chopped parsley, basil, and rosemary, the papery skins of onions and garlic cloves, freshly ground coffee beans, tiny, stray low dose aspirins, grains of driveway sand, clumps of garden soil, yellow clay, limerock, soot, and burnt wood, strands of hair from blonde to nearly black to gray and white, frayed threads, missing buttons, assorted screws, and loose snips from the edges of coupons. If I had never cleaned the floor at all, it would be layered with coffee drips, dried splashes of dishwater, bacon grease and olive oil splatter, tea stains, grape juice, and sticky spots from honey and molasses spills while I was baking. Put it all together and you would have a pretty good idea how we live our lives.

Every soul has a kitchen floor, places where the accumulated spills of life gather. We must regularly clean that floor, just as I am constantly sweeping and wiping and mopping, trying to stay ahead of the messes we make. As soon as I miss a day or a week, I have even more to clean up. It would be ridiculous to think I could ignore that floor and no one would know about us, wouldn’t it?

Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks,” Matt 12:34. You can deny it all you want, but what you speak shows who you really are. I can say I never bake, but whoever sweeps my floor will know better. I can pretend we don’t like Italian cuisine, but the evidence is right there. I can tell everyone we live in the city instead of the country, but the soil on my floor will say otherwise. It is getting harder for me to see those things now and to sweep them up perfectly, but my blindness to them will not keep others from knowing exactly what I do here all day long.

That kitchen floor of a heart will tell on you too. All you have to do is open your mouth. If you don’t keep it cleaned up, if you don’t monitor the things you store in it, it could belie your protestations of a righteous life. Sooner or later a word will slip out, a thought will take root and become a spoken idea. I heard someone say once that you cannot imagine in others what is not already in your own heart.

Of course, what’s on your floor could prove your righteous life instead of denying it. So take a moment today to examine your kitchen floor. Let it remind you to examine your heart as well. I had much rather people see sugar and cookie crumbs than Satan’s muddy footprints.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer, Psa 19:14.

I am certain that every Bible class teacher in the whole world has had this happen to them. You reach a subject that you know applies to one or more people in your audience personally. You know they need to hear this. So you carefully lay it out in a way that cannot be missed or denied.

Say you are teaching the story of Lydia and you reach that passage that seems innocuous, yet is anything but.

And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay." And she prevailed upon us, Acts 16:15.

You know there is someone who regularly calls the preacher, deacons, and elders and tells them what they need, expecting everyone to be at their beck and call, or who takes them to task for not doing as much as she thinks they should (as if she were the only qualified judge of such things). Meanwhile, this same person has yet to ever offer service to anyone else in the congregation. Instead she judges the entire congregation on how well she is served.

So you make the point clearly: Even a new Christian like Lydia, a brand new babe in Christ, could tell that her own faithfulness to the Lord was based on how often she served others, not on how often she was served by others. And why shouldn’t it be, when the Lord she claimed to be serving was a servant himself?

You hope to see the dawning light, and perhaps downcast eyes as that student realizes her error. But no, there she is nodding vigorously, perhaps even saying, “Exactly!” Your heart sinks because you know your efforts were in vain. Instead of examining herself, she is still examining the church. She is thinking, “Those people needed this, because they don’t serve like they should.”

It doesn’t matter the subject. It probably happens in every class and with every sermon in every church. Meanwhile, the folks who knock themselves out trying to be what the Lord expects them to be sit there wondering, “Do I do enough?”

So here is the thought for this morning. Stop judging everyone else. Think about yourself, for this is one area where it is not only allowed to be a little egocentric, but required. Don’t say, “They needed that.” Instead, say, “I needed that. Now how can I get better?”

Whatever the subject, even if you think it has absolutely nothing to do with you or your life, think about yourself. It is not my business to fix everyone else; it is only my business to fix myself. It is not my business to decide what everyone else needs to do; it is only my business to realize what I need to do. I must constantly ask myself, Did I need that? I know I did, somehow, even if it is not yet obvious to me. That only means I need to look harder.

Every lesson I hear, every sermon I listen to, should have me thinking, “How can I use this to become a better disciple of my Lord?”

They began to be sorrowful and to say to him one after another, "Is it I?" Mark 14:19.

I did not watch any television to speak of for about twenty years. A few football games here and there, and a couple of educational shows while the children were small meant that I knew more Sesame Street characters than characters on any of the popular series. I suppose the last shows I remembered well before then were the original Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, and Hawaii Five-O.

A few years ago I turned on some show—I don’t even remember what is was—and I nearly went crazy. The scene shifted every thirty seconds. You no longer had dialogue that built dramatic tension over a five minute time span. Instead you had 15 seconds of verbal staccato followed by an explosion or a gunfight or a chase scene. They tell me this is all because of the video game generation—people who cannot sit still longer than a minute at a time without some sort of excitement to keep the adrenaline pumping. Maybe I am an old fogy, but it seems to me that instead of accommodating all of this, we should be teaching people how to overcome it.

The problem with short attention spans is that you do not listen long enough to get below the subject’s surface. God spent 1500 years writing a book that you cannot read and understand in fifteen second bursts. He has already accommodated us with an incredible sacrifice. Seems to me we could learn to accommodate him and the way he communicates with us.

Parents, have you even thought about helping your children develop a longer attention span and a desire for greater depth in their studies? Instead of saying, “He just can’t sit still,” how about saying, “Sit still!” Instead of saying, “I can’t get them to listen,” say, “Listen! This is important!” Or don’t we believe it is?

Yes, I know all about ADHD. I have a son who has it. The doctor said that the reason he was so well-behaved and did so well in school in spite of it was because he had a verbal, educated family that believed in loving discipline. Was it easy? No, but no one ever said parenting was supposed to be. It takes patience and diligence—a long parental attention span!

It isn’t merely my idea of what does and does not constitute good behavior. I worry about children who cannot sit still long enough to learn a Bible lesson and the accompanying applications to their lives; who cannot concentrate long enough to memorize a verse that might help them in a tempting moment; who actually think the world revolves around them and needs to run on their frenetic schedule with a lot of excitement or it isn’t worth their notice. Keith has a lot of them sit across the desk from him in the prison—they usually have manacles on.

How do you think Moses managed 40 days of taking dictation from God on Mt. Sinai? How did Joshua abide the boredom of marching around Jericho everyday for six days, much less seven times on the seventh? How could Paul have fasted and prayed for three days straight without needing to get up and run around for awhile? How could those early churches sit and listen to an entire epistle being read to them at one sitting, and actually make heads or tails of it? How in the world did Noah spend 120 years building a giant box no one had ever seen before and couldn’t imagine the need for? Would any of this generation be able to?

Prayer requires long quiet moments with God. Meditation requires thoughtful time with the word of God. Commitment requires a lifetime of doing what needs to be done even when it is tedious and you don’t want to do it. Help your children learn those things. Don’t give in to yet another method for Satan to steal them away from us.

So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month. And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand. And the ears ofall the people were attentive to the Book of the Law.Neh 8:2,3.

I walked into the kitchen and stopped, looking around at the counters, the stove top, the sink, the pantry.

Keith came in behind me and asked, “What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t remember,” and nothing lying around in plain view had jogged that memory, one that couldn’t have been over a minute old. I have finally reached that stage when my memory is as fragile as my old lady bones.

My short term memory, that is. My memories of childhood, school, early marriage, and raising kids are firmly intact, and so are the memory verses I learned decades ago as a child.

For a while there, memory verses seemed to be out of style. I even heard a sister in Christ say their value was “overrated.” She was even older than I. I wonder how she feels now, especially during long nights when she can’t sleep, as happens so often to the elderly.

Those memorized verses are invaluable to me. They instantly spring to mind when I await another scary test result (“casting all your cares on him because he cares for you” 1 Pet 5:7); when the aches and pains of old age slow you down and you can no longer do what you have always done (“For this perishable body must put on the imperishable” 1 Cor 15:53); when friends and family pass on before you leaving a hole no one else can fill (“That you may not grieve as those who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep” 1 Thes 4:13,14); when you suddenly realize you’ve reached an age where anything could happen any time (“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord” Rev 14:13).

All my life during times of temptation, suffering, and betrayal, but also joy, hope and thanksgiving, those passages memorized so long ago have kept me going. They’ve helped me answer a skeptic, refute false teaching, encourage a suffering friend, and edify my sisters in Christ. Those words etched on the hearts of your children are anything but overrated. Fill them up now, and while you’re at it, fill yourself up before your memory, too, becomes as fragile as your bones.

“You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, Deut 11:18-20Dene Ward

I know—if you are not a musician you don’t know what I am talking about, but it really is 101—basic and easy.

“Diatonic” means “two tones.” A diatonic scale is made up of two kinds of tones—whole tones and semitones, or more commonly, whole steps and half steps. As Occidentals, the diatonic scale is the most pleasing tone to our ear. Try using a scale of only whole steps and it will set your teeth on edge. My students used to call it “outer space music.” Try making music with a half step scale and it will sound like you’ve let a hive of bumblebees loose in the room. The point is, it takes two kinds of steps to make pleasant music.

As humans we have a tendency to see “two kinds” in practically every situation and to do our best to make it NOT work. In the early church when everyone was Jewish, they still managed to make a distinction between Jews born in Palestine and those born elsewhere (Acts 6). Once Gentiles were converted, the distinction was circumcision (Acts 15). If that weren’t enough, the bias became wealth (James 2), and then the full blown heresy of Gnosticism (1 John)—those who “knew” things others did not.

“You’re not like us so you don’t belong,” was the attitude. “Change or leave,” was often unspoken but surely intended, and if change was not possible, then leaving was the obvious “choice.”

Paul spent several chapters in several epistles reminding us that while we are to repent (change) from a life of sin, no other change was required. In fact, our differences make us a stronger, better body.

But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you."…But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 1 Cor 12:18-21,24,25.

What I cannot do, maybe you can. What you can’t, maybe I or someone else can. Every ability is important and thus every person. In fact, we have a tendency to judge differently than God does in that area. As we have noted before, it was a woman who sewed for the poor whom Peter raised from the dead (Act 9), not the martyred preacher deacon (Acts 7) or apostle and cousin of the Lord (Acts 12).

God expects us to live together, love together, and work together in harmony. Rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, black and white, we are to make beautiful diatonic music together, not segregate ourselves into uniform groups that can only make weird sounds, sounds only fit for aliens, and not for the friends and neighbors we hope to save.

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus, Gal 3:27,28.

Ty Cobb is my favorite historical baseball player. Reading the new biography of him by Charles Leerhsen, Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, has confirmed this. When he retired from baseball, Cobb held ninety (90!) Major League records. When we think of him today, we primarily think of his hitting with good reason, as he still holds the career record for batting average at .366, the record for consecutive league batting titles at nine, and the record for most consecutive seasons batting at least .300 at an amazing 23. There have been over 100,000 men who have played baseball in the Major Leagues since 1900 but only two, Peter Rose and Ty Cobb, have over 4,000 hits.

So, Cobb was a great contact hitter, but what he was most known for in his day (1905-1928) was his base running. He not only set the record for most stolen bases, he also routinely kept running when all others would have stopped, makings singles into doubles and doubles into triples. He would tag up and take the next base on in-field popups and steal when the fielder threw the ball back to the pitcher. Jackie Robinson became famous partly for stealing home plate. He did it 19 times in his career. Cobb took home 54 times. My favorite Cobb story involves an inside-the-park home run that never left the infield. There was a man on third when Cobb hit a little dribbler. The runner assumed that the fielders would throw to first and tried to take home. Unfortunately for him, they threw to the catcher at home and caught him in a run-down. While he was darting back and forth between home and third with most of the other team chasing after him, no one notices that Cobb has kept rounding the bases. As they finally tagged the runner out near third base, Cobb was just passing third and headed for home. The opposing team was so agape at his chutzpah that no one thought to throw to home, and Cobb scored. You never knew what he was going to do, which was part of his plan. He intentionally tried to get into the heads of the opposing team. It has been said that if they kept records on causing poor, panicked throws Cobb would own that record too. In fact, a contemporary catcher, Ray Schalk, said “When Cobb is on first base and he breaks for second, the best thing you can do, really, is to throw to third.” When Cobb, who played for the Detroit Tigers, was roaming the bases, the other team needed to pay attention or he’d make them look silly.

So, Cobb was a Tiger prowling the bases trying to disrupt the other team. Please tell me you are already turning your Bibles to 1 Peter 5. 1 Pet. 5:8-9 “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.” Like Cobb, Satan is roaming around trying to get us. Like the opposing baseball team, we are never sure exactly what Satan will throw at us next and we have to keep watch constantly. Unlike Cobb, who was trying to destroy confidence and win a baseball game, Satan’s is trying to destroy our souls and send us to Hell. We must be watchful. We must be aware. Satan’s “batting average” is unfortunately high. We are promised, however, that we can resist him. If we do, he will flee (James 4:7). That’s something Ty Cobb never did.

AuthorDene Ward has taught the Bible for more than forty years, spoken at women’s retreats and lectureships, and has written both devotional books and class materials. She lives in Lake Butler, Florida, with her husband Keith.